Enable People With Severe Disabilities to Run Using a Frame

I'm running the 2025 London Marathon to enable people with severe disabilities who can't walk or have mobility issues to experience the freedom of running using a frame runner.

As an elite athlete with a mild disability I never thought much about how difficult it could be to find accessible sports for those with more severe disabilities. I have a progressive condition and had a massive deterioration in the 2015/16 season meaning I had to withdraw from Rio a week before the team flew out. I thought my career in sport was over but after two years I managed to make it back. I found that my body wasn’t capable of training the distances in the pool needed to be fully fit and competitive so a good friend introduced me to frame running.

A Frame Runner is a three wheeled frame where the athlete is supported by a saddle and body plate. The athlete propels against the frame using their feet, and steers using the mobility within their hands and/or arms. For the first time in my life I was able to experience the freedom of running! I could go on dog walks, walk around a park, go where my wheelchair couldn’t due to rocky terrain and attend parkrun!

Through social media I was able to meet a family local to my hometown with two sons who had disabilities. The oldest Leo who was 6 at the time and has acquired spastic quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy from having sepsis as an infant that caused a cardiac arrest resulting in a severe brain injury. This means he cannot sit, stand or walk unaided, he only has use of one hand and he cannot speak however he understands everything. His younger brother Bobby was 5 at the time and has a high level spinal cord injury so is paralysed from the shoulder blades down but is really active and has a lot of hobbies, Leo had none! Leo is able to walk if his bodyweight is held but as he cannot sit unaided the NHS physios would not supply him with a walker as they said he needed to learn to sit first, something he will most likely never be strong enough to do. I thought this was ridiculous and I was able to borrow a frame runner from the Manchester frame running club and drive it down to him for him to try for a couple of months.

Straight away he was doing laps around the garden on the frame runner and absolutely loved it! It was the first time he’d been able to move on his own power without the help of his electric wheelchair! I knew at this moment I needed to fundraise to get him his own frame and that’s what I did! The NHS physio was able to see him running around on the frame and Leo now has a walking frame and well as his own frame runner.

This was a really special moment for me as I know what the feeling of getting onto a frame runner for the first time feeling like and the freedom it brings! This really made me think about how many other Leo’s are out there! In 2023 I moved from Manchester to Loughborough and decided I wanted to set up a frame running club not only for Leo, but for all of the East Midlands based kids and adults with neurological impairments to have the opportunity to experience the freedom of running, I think everyone deserves to experience this!

This funding would help us remain sustainable by covering yearly costs such as frame maintenance, liability insurance costs and any additional equipment any of the participants may need

Thank you so much for considering helping Now I Can Run UK!